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Based on its recent analysis of the voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) access and session initiation protocol (SIP) trunking services market, Frost & Sullivan recognizes Windstream with the 2012 North American Frost & Sullivan Award for Market Share Leadership. Windstream's portfolio of VoIP access and SIP trunking services pushed the company into the market share leadership role with 22.1 percent of the market, based on revenue.

The North American VoIP access and SIP trunking services market is a rapidly growing one. The competition for market share and ongoing market consolidation are driving these services ever closer to commodity status, resulting in falling prices and reduced profit margins.

"Market share leadership is an important asset in hedging the effect of commoditization by compensating for price reductions with sheer sales volume," noted Frost & Sullivan Industry Analyst Michael Brandenburg. "Its successful merger with PAETEC and the creative bundling of data and voice services in ways that make the most sense to the customer have helped Windstream take the lead in a highly competitive market."

Windstream's aggressive acquisition history has made the company adept at both choosing acquisition targets and integrating these acquisitions into its product offerings. The acquisition of PAETEC secured a nationwide footprint for Windstream's voice services and combined two of North America's top five VoIP access and SIP trunking competitors. The addition of the Allworx IP PBX platform to the Windstream portfolio gives its customers a third option -- managed on-premises IP telephony. Furthermore, Windstream also offers hosted IP telephony and unified communications (UC) services, which complete the gamut of telephony solutions for business customers.

"These three options align very well with Windstream's go-to-market strategy of selling customers on holistic UC solutions, rather than disparate services, which is the strategy employed by most of its competitors," said Brandenburg.

While progressively focusing on the enterprise customer through its hosted IP telephony solution or a managed service with its Allworx IP PBX platform deployed on the premises, Windstream has taken particular care to cater to the needs of small to mid-sized business customers with a feature-rich alternative to standard analog lines without the burden of capital expenditures.

Windstream only provides its VoIP trunking services over its multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) and data networks, to maintain quality of service for voice as well as to provide the flexibility of bundled pricing. In fact, the company's data/voice bundle is a differentiated solution, offering customers a set amount of bandwidth that they can leverage for all of their voice, Internet, and data network needs. So, for instance, when an enterprise site's connection is not in use for voice traffic, it is available for faster downloads.

"Windstream also directs significant effort on pre-sales engineering to ensure that the products and services it provides, meet specific customer needs," observed Brandenburg. "This approach offers superior value to customers compared to the delivery of a boiler-plate menu of services, ensures customer loyalty and retention, and provides opportunities for attachment of additional services going forward."

In recognition of these strategies that have maneuvered Windstream to the forefront of the VoIP access and SIP trunking services market in North America, Frost & Sullivan is pleased to present it with the 2012 Market Share Leadership Award. Each year, Frost & Sullivan presents this award to the company that has demonstrated excellence in capturing the highest market share within its industry. The award recognizes the company's leadership position within the industry in terms of revenues.

Frost & Sullivan Best Practices Awards recognize companies in a variety of regional and global markets for demonstrating outstanding achievement and superior performance in areas such as leadership, technological innovation, customer service, and strategic product development. Industry analysts compare market participants and measure performance through in-depth interviews, analysis, and extensive secondary research in order to identify best practices in the industry.

About Windstream
Windstream Corp. (windstream.com) is a leading provider of advanced network communications, including cloud computing and managed services, to businesses nationwide. The company also offers broadband, phone and digital TV services to consumers primarily in rural areas. Windstream has more than $6 billion in annual revenues and is listed on the S&P 500 index.

About Frost & Sullivan
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